


Pixelated Ghost

by GeckoGirl89



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, POV Angel (BtVS), Photographs, Poignant, Post-Episode: s05e12 You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 13:32:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11670117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeckoGirl89/pseuds/GeckoGirl89
Summary: He refocuses his attention on the happy young woman in the picture. The longer he stares at it, the more it seems like Cordelia is actually alive.





	Pixelated Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt on fic-promptly (http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/823827.html?thread=103831059#t103831059): author's choice, author's choice,  
>  _If you look at a picture  
>  Of someone who’s dead  
> Are they alive again  
> If only for that instant  
> Your eyes are on their   
> Pixelated ghost?_
> 
> The picture I reference was also seen in 3.22 "Tomorrow" when Cordy was sitting at her kitchen table after Groo left. The name of the client was taken from this generator: http://www.fakenamegenerator.com

Angel had taken a picture from Cordelia's apartment after she died, and now it sits on the desk in his office at Wolfram and Hart.  
  
Cordy isn't with him anymore, and with all of the sins he had committed in the past, Angel doesn't believe he will make it to heaven when the Grim Reaper finally comes for him. Most likely, he will never see Cordelia again. At least not in anything but pictures.  
  
Angel really ought to be working on this contract for a client, but right now, he doesn't want to. He wants to examine that picture again.  
  
He picks up the frame and manages to smile, even if it does feel a bit worn around the edges. It's progress, Angel tells himself. A few weeks ago, he could barely look at anything of Cordelia's without wanting to cry.  
  
It's an early picture of them, from their first year together in L.A. Angel is positioned to Cordelia's left, while Wesley is on the right.  
  
Angel is struck by how carefree everyone in that photograph looks, even him. Back then, things were a lot simpler. This picture was taken in the days when they were just beginning to form a family, before a false prophecy and kidnapped child could build a wall between him and Wesley that could never fully come down, even if Angel was more understanding of Wesley's motivations now. It was before Angel had any idea of what Cordelia would eventually mean to him.  
  
Angel traces his fingertip over the curve of Cordelia's grin, wishing vainly that he could feel something besides cold glass. There's been this ache in his chest since he got that phone call from the hospital, this desperate and pathetic urge to hold her and keep her tethered to this earthly plane. He'd been telling the truth when he said he was lost without Cordelia during her coma, and it was even worse now that he couldn't even go visit her in the hospital and listen to her weak heartbeat or hold her hand.  
  
Angel swallows the lump in his throat and forces the tears back into his eyes. He refocuses his attention on the happy young woman in the picture. The longer he stares at it, the more it seems like Cordelia is actually alive. If he concentrates, he can almost hear the sound of her breath and heartbeat over the medley of conversations outside his door. And instead of air freshener, he can pretend that the air smells of gardenia flowers just like her favorite perfume. And if he closes his eyes, he can delude himself into thinking that the smooth glass covering the picture is instead the silk of the shirt Cordelia wore on the last day of her life, which Angel had felt under his fingertips when he kissed her in those last few seconds.  
  
Angel hears a knock on his door and opens his eyes. When he looks down, he remembers that Cordelia is gone and that he is only holding a Kodak trace of the woman he still loves. He puts the picture frame back on his desk and straightens, attempting to look more businesslike and composed.  
  
"Come in," he calls.  
  
Harmony enters the door with a smile and Angel feels a twinge of sadness. She's his secretary now, but Cordelia used to fulfill many of the duties Harmony now carries out. At the beginning, before Doyle gave her the visions, Cordy helped handle the practical side of their little private investigation firm and implemented the details that made it successful, like printing up business cards. Harmony is competent enough at her job, Angel muses, but it's just not the same.  
  
Cordelia was always more than a secretary to him, even from the first day they worked together. She was his humanizing influence, his vision girl, his family, his dearest friend, and eventually the love of his unnaturally long life. But now she's gone.  
  
"Your eleven o'clock is here, and your 12:30 client wants to move the meeting to 1:00. Should I go ahead and reschedule that meeting?"  
  
Angel nodded. "Go ahead and reschedule the meeting, and send in Mr. Raines." He can't muster up the energy to fake a smile for Harmony, but he tries to give her a calm, pleasant expression. It's not her fault that she's a daily reminder of everything he's lost. "Thanks, Harmony."  
  
"You're welcome, boss."

She turns around to leave and misses the way Angel's face falls at her words. After she shuts the door, Angel drags his shaking fingers through his hair for a few seconds, just long enough to keep himself from completely falling apart. He can't do that, not when he's about to see someone.  
  
By the time the client enters the room, Angel has put himself together enough so that the client doesn't notice anything unusual when he shakes Angel's hand. They discuss the mundane details of work, and Raymond Raines doesn't detect the slump in his shoulders, the hint of misery in his furrowed brow, or the haunted, slightly distant look in his eyes.  
  
It's something they never see, but it's there, a constant, oppressive presence even if it's invisible. Cordelia isn't here, in any form, but Angel will always be haunted by her ghost.


End file.
